Maqui Berries

Maqui Berry (Aristotelia Chilensis)

Also known as Chilean Wineberry, this is an evergreen tree shrub that is native to Chile and Argentina. It has thin branches that are very bendy.

The tree produces very small berries, about 4-5 mm. They turn dark purple, bordering on black when ready to pick. Inside are large, hard seeds that take up much of the berry, so they are not great for eating straight from the tree. The berries are best juiced. The berries offer many health benefits as they contain some of the highest concentrations of antioxidants and are claimed to be a super-food.

Our Maqui tree at home is about a year old, and we harvested the berries in December in New Zealand. It is our first harvest.

Harvested berries. They look like little jewels.

When processed through a juicer these berries produced a reasonable amount of juice. You can see where it gets the name ‘Wineberry’, the juice is very similar to red wine.

The juice tasted neither sweet nor bitter. It was palatable, strong tasting, kind of like a blackberry, with a hint of grassiness and a tartness that left a dry feeling on the tounge which was a surprise, considering this was a juice. The ‘dryness’, is as in describing a ‘dry sherry or wine’ and this is from the astringent properties in the berries. The juice also stains the tongue a lovely shade of purple!